Same here. The farthest I’ve driven to without a seatbelt on is the 1/4 mile down to the mail box. You’d think that there being no law in this state would mean **a lot ** of people wouldn’t wear them (like with the helmet law! But then, I believe in natural selection, so bikers can do what they want) but I can’t think of many people who don’t wear their seatbelts all the time, too.
For the boyfriend and me, it was always “if we remembered it,” about 50% of the time. That is, until he was driving the ambulance (he’s an EMT) back from Nashville in the rainy, wee hours of the morning across the Cumberland Plateau, and a car cut across in front of him. He overcorrected (thankfully, or else he would have gone off into the plateau), and rolled the ambulance end over end once, and then rolled it on its side about 4 to 6 times. He walked away with glass shards in his arm, and a few bruises and bumps. Had he not been buckled up at the time, I would be laying flowers at his grave. I think that’s a good enough reason to buckle up religiously, which we both now do!
I always wear my seatbelt. Even to move the car to the street so I can shovel the driveway.
Whenever I get into a friend’s car and I can’t find the seatbelt, I freak out and hunt for it frantically. Once or twice I couldn’t find the belt at all because it was wedged behind the back seat, and I had to ride without it. I was scared the whole time and I hated it.
The funny thing is, I’m not at all uncomfortable in a bus, even though there are no seatbelts.
Started wearing my seat belt in college before it was mandatory. When I am driving and have a passenger, it is belt up or we don’t move.
My stories. Back in 1999, I started skidding on ice, did a 180, then a 180 back, down a 7 foot embankment and stopped about 18 inches from a tree. I didn’t get to test the airbag, but the brakes worked great and the seatbelt certainly helped keep me in my seat through all of it. Then in January 2004 I got hit in a low speed head on. Again no airbags, it was only on the driver’s side fender and not quite fast enough, and the seatbelt kept my face from meeting the steering wheel. Since I was going to Maui 2 days later, I was certainly glad about that.
Minor hijack of my own thread, but I had to say I’ve heard the same thing. And the worst accident I’ve ever been in happened right in front of the apartment building I lived in at the time. My mom and I had just pulled out of the building and stopped at the light on the corner heading north. As the light turned green and we started to go, a woman in a pickup truck heading east ran the light (it wasn’t close – she just didn’t notice the signal), got t-boned by the car heading south across from us, and then slammed into us.
My mom and I suffered some pretty bad bruises from the seatbelt, but considering our car was totaled, I think the seatbelts did their job. The folks in the pickup truck were not so fortunate. There were three adults up front and two young kids in the back underneath the camper shell, not secured in any way. The truck rolled a couple of times, and both kids were ejected from the back and seriously injured.
I am so glad California has outlawed riding in the bed of trucks. I don’t know how common that law is, though.
Always, always. I’m among that minority of people my age (45) who has worn them all my life. We never got in the backseat of a new family car (and, my dad being a motorhead, we went through a lot of new-to-us used cars) before my dad installed the belts. When we were too small for regular belts, he used to install harness-type belts for us. We’d hop right in and fasten 'em up.
I’ve never been in a moving vehicle without a seatbelt on. Out of habit, I buckle up even for the drive from the main gate to our office (half a mile, at a speed limit of under 10mph).
I first met my husband’s half sister when she was 7 years old, and found it completely disturbing that she would not wear her belt in the car. My parents would not have stood for that crap for a second when I was her age… or even now I guess. I couldn’t understand why her parents weren’t more forceful about it.
Mom and Dad had a little rule. Our cars couldn’t go into Drive or Reverse unless we all had our belts on. Period.
Rule still holds to this day. Nobody sits in my car without a belt. Ever. People are nothing but projectiles trapped in glass and metal when they don’t wear their belts. Dad did a story on seat belt research in the early 1950’s. Soon after that he bought army surplus webbing from an airplane cargo net. Built his own seatbelts using buckles. Instsalled them himself.
MANY years before American auto makers installed them. I grew up with a 1958 VW Beetle with seat belts. 
There is a school of thought that says that lap belts are dangerous because they allow for a severed spinal cord when the body rockets forward. There is some documentation as to that, but the lives saved by lap belts? Irrefutable.
Cartooniverse
It’s always been force of habit for me. Even when I was young, it had been drilled in to me a lot.
So much so that when I went for a ride in my dad’s old Toyota Corona which had seatbelts in the front but not in the back, I always felt a little ‘naughty’ sliding around in the back seat. But, knowing that the ‘law’ himself was driving the car (ie, my dad), I couldn’t possibly get in trouble! It was so wrong… but so good!
Geez I miss that car…
Seatbelts - helmets - safety glasses - rain coat - life vest - medicnes as prescribed - eat right - exercise - use turn signials - do safety checks before driving - other smart or safe stuff?
Sometimes … Bawahahahahaha
Yes, and I would insist that my passengers use their belts.
Don’t like it? Find another ride.
If I had never had to, then probably not, because I wouldn’t have developed the habit. If the law changed now, I’d still wear it.
No I wouldn’t if I didn’t have to, except when the roads are icy. Perhaps if they weren’t all designed for 6 foot people so that us short folks have our belts strangling us right across our throats, I would feel diferently. I’ve often thought that in a serious accident the belt would break my neck if I were thrown in the right (wrong) direction. Claustraphobic is one thing - I could live with that. Feeling strangled is quite another. I have a little clip to keep it off my neck, but that makes it ride too high which isn’t good either. I hate them. But I wear them to avoid the fine.
Is that the risk of endangering the lives of others in the sense that your untethered body gets thrown around, hurting other riders? Or in some other way?
I sometimes leave myine off when driving locally in NH, but most of the time I wear it when in the front seat. In the back seat I leave it off unless the driver insists, because the lap belt makes me feel sick.
I live in NH. Neither belts nor helmets are required.
I put them on whenever the vehicle moves.
My only source of income is my brain. I break it, and I’m done.
Soft computer hands can’t/won’t/don’t do “real” work! 
This is a good example of a false dichotomy.
I was a crash-test dummy as an unrestrained passenger in a high speed rollover. There was flight, there was rolling over along two axes, there was total demise of the vehicle. There was much broken glass. There were many projectiles in the passenger compartment. The officer filling the report refused to believe that I was not wearing my seatbelt, but I know I wasn’t. That was summer of 1993. I still have lasting damage that affects my life nearly daily. Since then…I wear my seatbelt. I moved my car a whole 50 ft. from a parking spot to my garage Sunday and wore my seatbelt.
I installed seatbelts in my cars before they became dealer options, much less standard equipment.
I also padded my dashboard in the 50’s
One would think that after Princess Diana’s fatal accident (driver and two passengers in back seat died; the one survivor was the only one wearing a seatbelt, in the front passenger seat, supposedly the most dangerous seat in the car) that seat belt use percentages would have skyrocketed. Doesn’t seem to have happened.
My parents always insisted on seatbelts. My kids now get upset if I move the car before they’re buckled in. In the late 1980s I lost a young cousin (17) to non-seatbelt-wearing; the driver was making a U-turn; the car was hit by a car coming from the opposite direction; she was thrown from the car and then hit by another vehicle.
Personally, I don’t understand the people who say the government doesn’t have the right to tell you waht to do in this case. The government grants you the privilige to drive; therefore, the government can dictate under what terms you are allowed to do so. Does this seem wrong to anyone?
Not to me, although in my particular locality, the government (or one of their agencies) also has the job of mopping you up off the road and putting you back together, so that gives them a bit more of a say in the matter, IMO.